I'd done a pretty good job last week of avoiding all that World Cup madness, but then somebody slipped me a copy of The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey's collection of essays from 32 writers about each of the nations competing in this year's tournament. At first, I just set it aside, but then I kept seeing all these promos for the Cup during ESPN's endless World Series of Poker reruns, so I figured, okay, the essays on Australia and Brazil are right next to each other, I can give that a whirl—and it only took Ben Rice's essay about the Aussie Socceroos' desire to make their mark on the international stage before I was hooked. Of course, once the Brazilians have sent Australia back home, I had to find a new team to root for, but Caryl Phillips did a pretty good job of convincing me to root for Ghana against the U.S. Thursday morning (even as Saturday night's American draw against Italy stirs my patriotic spirit).

Of course, the media world being what it is in 2006, there's a Thinking Fan's blog, but I've actually been suckered into NYT foreign affairs correspondent Roger Cohen's "The Beautiful Game," an International Herald Tribune blog that features great sports writing which serves to make the game accessible to duffers like me while (I imagine) remaining complex enough to hold the interest of expert fans. Apparently I'm not the only fan; Cohen a call from Henry Kissinger last week...

Tangentially, Wilsey will be taking time out from his World Cup obsession to join Jonathan Franzen, Ariel Levy, Colson Whitehead, and Malcolm Gladwell in the latest New York installment of the Progressive Reading Series. They'll join host Stephen Elliott tonight at Coda (34 E 34th St) to raise funds for progressive candidates in November's congressional elections.